Interest in safety or educational character merchandise has ebbed and flowed over the years. Mattel’s Hot Wheels, for instance, produced a line of Crash Test Dummies toys in early 2000 to coincide with a new Fox animated series. In the mid-2000s, Thunder Creek introduced a line of Mr. Yuk t-shirts.
The past couple of years, however, found these icons bypassed in favor of YouTube and pop culture characters. Now, a growing number of manufacturers are once again exploring the advantages and challenges in licensing government and non-profit safety icons, which include Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl, Sparky the Fire Dog, and McGruff the Crime Dog, among others.
“Every Bit Helps”
Those who oversee these characters, in turn, are eager to seek out licensing deals to help ease funding cuts. Some 61% of D.A.R.E.’s total 2009 revenue (its most recent figures) comes from royalties earned based on sales of licensed merchandise.
The other agencies don’t receive nearly as much from their licensing endeavors, but still rely on the money the product sales generates. McGruff licensing and related educational products comprise 7% of the National Crime Prevention Council’s revenues. The Pittsburgh Poison Center, which owns Mr. Yuk, reports that licensing represents only 5% of its total income. “We don’t make too much money off of Mr. Yuk, but at the same time, every bit helps,” says Pittsburgh Poison Center’s Edward Krenzelok.
Royalty rates for these characters are within the standard range of 5%-10% and in light of the economic downturn there are often no advances or guarantees, though “we hope to reverse that,” says Libby Kavoulakis of the Metis Group, which handles licensing for the U.S. Forest Service.
Benefiting From The Retro Movement
Nostalgia is a popular trend right now. Educational icons, some which have been around for 30, 50, and in the case of Smokey, 65 years, align perfectly with those seeking to capitalize on all things vintage. “We’ve really benefited from the retro movement. The Gap, Old Navy, and Kohl’s all like [our Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl] t-shirts,” says Kavoulakis.
Apparel, by far, is the most popular category. Nearly all of these icons are available on graphic t-shirts, which sell online and at a variety of mass and specialty retailers.
After demonstrating strong sales in t-shirts at Old Navy and Kohl’s, Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl are now expanding into additional categories, including bobbleheads, home decor and throw blankets, gardening, DVDs, children’s books, and bird feeders. There’s also a Smokey movie in the works.
McGruff and his nephew Scruff are ramping up their exposure in 2011 through an updated website that will showcase more than 800 different products from 19 licensees. One McGruff licensee produces more than one million trick-or-treat bags for Halloween. Licensee Local Celebrity’s Daniel Ballard adds its line of McGruff t-shirts was a strong seller for Urban Outfitters.
While The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) continues to license Sparky the Fire Dog for numerous educational products, its first large scale consumer deal is with Imagine Publishing for a children’s book coming out fall 2011.
Unofficial Seal Of Approval
One key asset in licensing educational icons is the characters’ direct or implied endorsement of the product. Since these characters can only be affiliated with pro-social messages, the licensee benefits from the association. It’s an unofficial seal of approval. “You cannot use these characters for purely commercial use. An image can’t just be on packaging to sell ballpoint pens. This means Smokey can’t be on a soda can unless it is relevant to [environmental] conservation and preservation. It would work if Smokey appears on a can along with a recycling message,” says Kavoulakis.
The message also has to perfectly align with the character. One potential Smokey licensee, for instance, was interested in licensing the bear for fire retardant paint. “Smokey is about preventing forest fires, not structural fires. His image on a paint can doesn’t further his message so we had to turn that licensee down,” she says.
Plus, since the royalty funnels back to the parent organization or agency the purchaser feels the t-shirt (or other) purchase supports a good cause.
With McGruff now appearing in PSAs aimed at seniors to warn about telemarketing scams, and the Crash Test Dummies being admitted to the Smithsonian Museum, these characters’ appeal will span generations. Parents who grew up with these characters embrace the wholesome image, teens enjoy the irony, and kids just enjoy the personalities. Three in four kids 9-11 (76%) can identify McGruff, a percentage that places him close to Shrek (84%) and Alvin & the Chipmunks (83%) in character awareness, according to e-Poll.
Several of these characters are active in social media. The NFPA set up a Facebook account to celebrate Sparky the Fire Dog’s 60th birthday. Smokey regularly posts on his Facebook page and has more than 34,000 fans; Woodsy, sadly, has only 1,570 Facebook fans at the time of this writing. But there are also numerous “unofficial” fan pages, including those for Mr. Yuk, McGruff, and the Crash Test Dummies.
“Retail Is Not Our World”
A significant downside in licensing these characters, as opposed to commercial licensing, is that there’s no exclusivity. This means these characters can appear on any number of products within the same category.
One of the more pressing challenges is the lack of licensing expertise within many of these organizations. The U.S. Forest Service outsources its programs to the licensing agency The Metis Group, but most of the others handle licensing in-house. This means some are more accessible or savvy to licensing fundamentals than others. “We deal with the fire service and schools. Retail is not our world,” says NFPA’s Steve Dornbusch.
Obviously, the more difficult it is for a licensee to obtain information or initiate contact, the less likely a deal will happen. Case in point: Mr. Yuk is still warning against poison, but his friends Officer Ugg, Deputy Don’t, Captain Be Careful, and Nosiop (poison spelled backward) from other poison centers have all fallen to the wayside. This is because Mr. Yuk, guided by the Pittsburgh Poison Center, was proactive and accessible in raising awareness and seeking licensing partners on a national, rather than local, scale. The others were not.
Another challenge comes from overburdened employees due to staff cutbacks. Many groups are forced to decide between chasing down new leads or going after illegal use of their characters, with the latter taking priority.
Conflicting Messages
Sometimes governmental or non-profit bureaucracy can cause logistical issues for potential licensing deals. For instance, the Metis Group had to turn down a licensing deal for animal crackers since the Forest Service’s sister agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, oversees food. It would be a public relations disaster if one government agency were forced to recall another agency’s product.
This inter-agency conflict also impacted deals for Smokey vitamins and a Smokey line of tree and seed packaging due to the possibility of invasive species. It wouldn’t look good if a Smokey-affiliated tree sapling native in the Northeast was planted in the Southwest and damaged the forest. [Licensing/Government]
Contacts and Connections: Drug Abuse Resistance Education (Daren the Lion), Mistie Bell Banks, PO Box 512090, Los Angeles, CA 90051; 800-223-3273; mistie.bellbanks@dare.org; www.dare.org.
E-Poll, Mary Ann Farrell, SVP Research, 16133 Ventura Blvd., #905, Encino, CA 91436; 818-995-4960, x22; mfarrell@epoll.com; www.epollresearch.com.
Local Celebrity, Daniel Ballard, CEO, 761 E. 9th St., Los Angeles, CA 90021; 213-486-5122, x202; daniel@localcelebrity.com; www.localcelebrity.com.
Mattel, Juan Gutierrez, Director Worldwide Licensing, 333 Continental Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245; 310-252-3204; juan.gutierrez@mattel.com; www.mattel.com.
Metis Group, Libby Kavoulakis, 1800 K St., NW, #929, Washington, DC 20006; 202-822-5080; lkavoulakis@themetisgroup.com; www.themetisgroup.com.
National Fire Protection Association (Sparky the Fire Dog), Steve Dornbusch, Licensing, Special Projects, 1 Batterymarch Park, Qunicy, MA 02169; 617-984-7564; sdornbuschy@nfpa.org; www.nfpa.org.
National Crime Prevention Council (McGruff), Michelle Boykins, Marketing, 2001 Jefferson Davis Highway, #901, Arlington, VA 22202; 202-261-4184; mboykins@ncpc.org; www.ncpc.org.
Pittsburgh Poison Center (Mr. Yuk), Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Edward Krenzelok, Director, 3705 5th Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213; 412-390-3300; edward.krenzelok@chp.edu; www.mryuk1.com.
Thunder Creek, Jeffrey Schalik, VP Licensing, 6600 Moravia Park Dr., Baltimore, MD 21237; 800-360-8337, x322;
jschalik@thundercreek.com; www.thundercreekline.com.
U.S. Department of Transportation (Crash Test Dummies), Susan McMeen, Marketing, 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE, Washington, DC 20590; 202-366-2711; susan.mcmeen@dot.gov; www.dot.gov.
© Copyright 2011, EPM Communications, Inc. May not be reproduced without written consent of publisher.